


final warning (consider yourself threatened)

by astralscrivener



Series: vld fic requests [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Gun Violence, M/M, Major Character Injury, Team as Family, fic request, the other characters make appearances but aren't major enough to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 09:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16679203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralscrivener/pseuds/astralscrivener
Summary: In the aftermath of devastating war and catastrophic weather events, supplies are scarce and the law is dead. A trip out into the Dead Zone results in Keith captured by James Griffin's gang. He puts the Lions on notice: three days to recover Keith before it's too late.Lance blames himself. Shiro blames himself. Keith would really like to make it out in one piece.





	final warning (consider yourself threatened)

**Author's Note:**

> fic request for twitter user [makaiouzodiac](https://twitter.com/makaiouzodiac), who requested the prompt "running out of time"
> 
> this got. longer than i intended. 
> 
> anYHOO title is lyrics from written by wolves' "explode," which, you might note, this is not the first time i've used written by wolves lyrics
> 
> STAN WRITTEN BY WOLVES THEY'RE ON SPOTIFY
> 
> n e ways
> 
> **trigger warnings were already in the tags but again: trigger warnings for BLOOD, VIOLENCE, GUN VIOLENCE, MAJOR CHARACTER INJURY, yada yada**

            The rope around Keith’s wrists dug into his skin, and he vowed then and there that if he survived this, he was going to kick James Griffin’s ass.

            The blindfold didn’t help much in figuring out his surroundings. One minute, he’d been scouting for supplies, and the next—this. An ambush. Keith’s heart rate spiked as he wondered just what Griffin and his crew did to _Lance_ , who was supposed to have been watching his back. Keith had given him one last farewell and left him on the roof of a building just a hundred yards away, while he himself went into the mess of the Dead Zone. If Lance hadn’t spotted Griffin and his crew, hadn’t been able to save Keith in time—

            “Look alive, Kogane.”

            A sharp kick to his side drew a grunt from Keith, a grunt and nothing else, because he wouldn’t give this fucker the satisfaction of seeing him in pain, not if he could help it. He grit his teeth and raised his head in the general direction of Griffin’s voice. The back of it throbbed painfully, indicating blunt force trauma. Dimly, the thought of internal bleeding crossed Keith’s mind, and he stamped that one down.

            Two pairs of arms suddenly gripped Keith at his biceps. He thrashed only momentarily, before the cool barrel of a gun pushed his bangs against his forehead. He ceased struggling almost immediately, fists clenching as Griffin chuckled.

            “So, someone doesn’t have as big a death wish as I thought.”

            Moments later, Keith was set down on a chair. James ordered the two people on him to bind his legs to the chair legs, and the whole time, the barrel of the gun stayed pressed to his forehead. It stayed there when the two people finished on his legs, and James ordered his torso bound to the chair back. Keith bit down on his lip as a distraction, dug his fingernails into his palms and left crescent moons behind.

            “Everything ready?” James called, and a deeper voice gave a quiet affirmation.

            Griffin muttered something to himself, seeming thoroughly pleased. Keith shifted in his seat uncomfortably, terror and shame and anger warring over the tremors that ran through him. Rough hands came down on Keith’s shoulders, jolting him. He winced as the barrel of the gun pressed harder against his forehead, followed by a grunt, and then it vanished. Keith heard footsteps shuffling backwards, heard the whine of some piece of old tech starting up.

            “Hello, Lions,” James greeted, and Keith’s head snapped up. He envisioned the malice on James’ face as he looked into what he could only assume was a camera. “I’ve been waiting on you for the last two days, and what do you know? Not a _peep._ ”

            _Two days._ He’d been out two fucking _days?_ What the hell happened between then and now? Was the crew okay? And what about _Lance?_

            James’ fingers dug into Keith’s shoulder as he squeezed, and then one let go, only to rip the blindfold from his eyes. Keith squinted against the sudden flood of light in his eyes and sought out the camera—directly in front of him. And just behind it, one of Lance’s childhood friends, with a rifle pointed directly at Keith’s forehead. Keith made eye contact with him for a fraction of a second, before Ryan Kinkade tore his eyes away with a look of guilt.

            “I know you received my message,” James continued, and the hand that ripped Keith’s blindfold off drifted down to his thigh, to some small sheath on his belt. He locked his fingers around the hilt of a knife and brought it up to Keith’s face, angling it so it caught the light and glinted. “So it makes me wonder why a rescue operation was never staged. Clearly, you care, seeing as you nearly _killed_ Leifsdottir yesterday.”

            His knuckles turned white and voice turned scraping, gravelly.

            “Tell me why, Lions, I shouldn’t repay your price with _interest._ ”

            The fingers on Keith’s shoulder dug harder, probably hard enough to draw blood if Keith hadn’t been wearing a shirt. He pressed the serrated edge of his knife to Keith’s throat, to the skin over his jugular. Just one neat slice would be all it took to end him right then and there—Keith remained silent, deadly still, and decided that a scouting mission was _not fucking worth this._

            “I could do it right now.”

            Pressure—pressure on the blade. Keith shut his eyes—this was really it. He was going to die like _this_ : kidnapped in the midst of an ambush, and killed on camera, in a feed directly to his friends and family. Over a _fucking. Scouting. Mission._

            “But I won’t. Not yet.”

            The pressure eased up, but Keith didn’t dare relax. Not when the knife came back down seconds later, pressing into the skin of his cheek. James’ grin dripped with a sadism that shook Keith down to his core, as they met gazes, before James flicked his eyes back up to the camera and jerked Keith closer to him. Keith killed the grunt in his throat, kept his face as passive as possible.

            “Twenty-four hours, Lions. Your time begins…”

            He sliced deep into Keith’s cheek. Keith hissed but otherwise gave no indication he’d felt a thing, aside from his fingernails practically tearing into the flesh of his palm. The cold stung the fresh cut, no doubt already filling with the dust hanging in the air here.

            “…Now.”

            With that, the camera cut out, with a dying buzzing sound. Keith filtered shallow breaths through his teeth as Griffin knelt down in front of him, smiling, assessing. Taunting.

            “I wonder what I’ll take away next.” His eyes roved over Keith. “Maybe a hand…maybe an eye…maybe we’ll start with that mullet of yours. Heard McClain’s got a thing for it, right?”

            “Keep his name out of your—”

            Keith cut himself off as James pressed the knife against his mouth, hard enough to draw blood. Keith glared, while James rose back to full height and began circling Keith, gait relaxed and lazy. He let Keith’s blood slide down the blade, drip onto the floor with hardly a sound. On his second go-around, he stopped behind Keith, point of the knife coming to rest at the back of his neck. Right over his spine.

            “This would be far too easy,” James murmured. “Renders _you_ unable to fight back. _And_ I _never_ promised they’d get you back in the same condition you came here in.”

            _I didn_ _’t just_ come _here_ , Keith bit down on his retort.

            “You already cut him,” Ryan cut in then, and Keith’s eyes flicked up. Ryan stepped out from behind the camera and lowered the barrel of the gun toward the floor. His face was unreadable. “At least give it some time before you do something else. Ups the stakes, doesn’t it? Another video home?”

            For a few moments, James and Ryan only stared at each other, while sweat beaded on Keith’s forehead as he watched them. Finally, James sighed in resignation and tore his gaze away from Ryan, settling it back on Keith—Keith felt the eyes on the back of his head, as James dragged the tip of the knife down his skull, light enough to send a shiver shooting up his spine.

            “Fine,” James conceded. “Every hour, send another video in. Don’t go very far.”

            A dismissal.

            Ryan spared no glance for Keith as he nodded at James, and then walked out of the room, hoisting his rifle over his shoulder. James waited until the heavy door to the room slammed shut and then circled back around to the front of Keith. Keith kept his head low, and watched through the hair falling in his eyes as James leveled the knife at his face, one more time, and then scowled, spun on his heel, and left.

* * *

            Guilt and terror squeezed Lance’s lungs as Adam relayed everything to him, Hunk, and Shiro over the radio, as they kicked up dust, speeding down an empty road. The rifle weighed heavily in his lap—the same rifle he should’ve used to take down Griffin, take down his goons two days ago. The gang kept telling him _not your fault, couldn_ _’t have prepared for a distraction like that, you did the best you could_ —but it didn’t change the fact that Keith was being held for ransom, twenty-three hours ticking down until it would be too late to get him back.

            “Shiro, if you keep driving like this, you’re gonna get us killed, and then Keith is _really_ fucked,” Hunk muttered from the backseat.

            Lance glanced over at Shiro’s white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. It was already bad enough that they were the lone souls on an open road—they might as well have had a big neon sign flashing over their heads, inviting anyone and everyone to come and get them.

            “Hunk, don’t backseat drive,” Shiro bit out, and didn’t slow once underneath a stoplight flashing yellow. “I know what I’m doing.”

            _“You better,”_ Adam’s voice crackled over the radio. _“If you don’t bring them back in one piece, we’re going to have words, Takashi.”_

            “One piece, very funny.”

            _“Bad choice of words, but I mean it.”_

            Lance met Hunk’s eyes through the rearview mirror, worry lines creasing both of their foreheads. Hunk pursed his lips and shook his head; Lance sighed and sank back down into the passenger seat and held his rifle tighter. Out the window, desolate buildings vanished just as quickly as they appeared, blurs there one second and gone the next. The further Shiro drove, the more familiar the area became. Just two days ago, Lance lay atop a roof, on his stomach, his rifle in his hands.

            A buzz. An explosion in the east. Keith, in the west, suddenly gone.

            A pain in his neck, a ringing in his ears.

            The next thing he knew, he woke up in the med center of their hideout, Allura working her hardest to wake him back up and drain every drug from the tranq dart out of his system.

            Lance wished they could have done the same to his mind. Over and over, he replayed the scene, trying to figure out where he’d gone wrong. He should’ve seen whoever’d hit him with the dart, should’ve seen a trap coming, _should_ _’ve been there to protect Keith._ He nearly threw up when Shiro walked into the med center to talk to him, and explained that he was lucky his radio had been on, lucky Adam and Pidge picked up on his cry of pain, lucky they were able to get Hunk and Romelle out to his location.

            _But Keith is out there,_ he’d thought then. _Keith is probably being hurt._

            Hours later, the first warning came in. They had three days to get him back. Twenty-four hours after, the second warning. And just an hour ago, the third warning. The final warning, probably. This time, a video feed accompanied the warning—by then, Shiro, Lance, and Hunk were already on the road, Matt and Pidge guiding them, Adam keeping tabs on the situation.

            “We’re going to bring him back. Griffin’s gang isn’t like Sendak’s.”

            _“I told you we should’ve been out there yesterday.”_

            “I know, I _know,_ now would you let me drive?”

            _“I…fine. Stay safe out there, Kashi.”_

            “We will…I promise.”

            Lance and Hunk remained silent through the entire exchange, stayed silent the rest of the way to the location Matt had traced the signal to. Several buildings down the block, Shiro pulled up to an abandoned warehouse; he hadn’t even hit the breaks before Lance threw the door open and took off running, gun in hand. He clambered up a fire escape, the ladder’s rattling echoing in the emptiness, while Shiro and Hunk continued on down the road.

            This plan had to work. The team had vague knowledge of Griffin’s gang and how it operated, just that there were four of them, and Romelle nearly killed one in a supply operation yesterday. Griffin, the ringleader, one of Keith’s childhood enemies. Unknown sharpshooter, likely the one who’d gotten Lance that day—that still stung his ego a little, and Lance winced as he hauled himself onto the roof and army-crawled to the edge of it, Griffin’s base in his field of vision. Then there was the girl they’d nearly killed yesterday, and one other.

            Four of them, and they made up the MFEs. What the acronym truly stood for was lost on the Lions—Pidge made up the MotherFucking Edgelords, and that was that.

            Lance adjusted his rifle in front of him and peered through the scope. All around, he found nothing but dirt, dusty roads, yellowed grass, dilapidated buildings. Of every building in his range, Griffin’s appeared the neatest, the most structurally sound, even with its shattered windows and broken brick and bullet holes in its front door.

            “I’m in position,” Lance grunted. “Exterior clear.”

            He switched his focus to the windows, lowered the goggles on his head and switched them on. The screens in front of his eyes showed nothing but static, at first, but slowly, the building materialized in a thermal map. Inside, Lance made out five bodies. One on a top floor, likely looking out. One on the bottommost floor, reclining. One pacing the halls. Another posted guard to the room housing the fifth, and the fifth, sitting in a chair with what Lance assumed was their head bent.

            Keith.

            “We’re comin’, Mullet,” Lance whispered. “Hang on.”

* * *

            Keith raised his head as the door creaked open again, and James strode back in, knife in hand. It must have been the top of the hour; the way he grinned confirmed it, when he stopped in front of Keith, grabbed his chin, and forced his head up to meet his eyes.

            “So,” Griffin said, “looks like your friends _still_ haven’t come…clock’s a-ticking. They’re wasting precious seconds.”

            “What do you _want from them?_ ” Keith asked, as Griffin let him go and took a step back, clasping his hands behind him and smiling. “What’s the point of this? It was a fucking supply run in the _Dead Zone._ Neutral territory, last I checked.”

            Griffin spread his palms—well, palm. He still clutched the knife, twirling it around. “I don’t see any laws in place that dictate what I can and can’t do, do you?”

            Keith didn’t answer, because Griffin was right.

            When he was no older than six, this world became a lawless hell. He didn’t remember much from that time—whether he’d gotten head trauma that blocked it all out, repressed it, suppressed it, didn’t matter. One moment, things were fine. The next, things were not. He and his father—just his father, because his mother disappeared before Keith was old enough to remember her—fled their hometown and went on the run. When his father died, rescuing civilians from a burning building, Keith was ten. Ten and an orphan struggling to survive with nothing but a knife from his long-gone mother.

            Then he found Shiro and Adam.

            It only took Keith nearly stabbing Shiro for him to decide to take him under his wing. Over time, their makeshift family grew. They picked up Pidge and Matt, old family friends whose parents disappeared. They picked up Hunk and Lance, neighborhood kids who’d kept watch over Pidge when she was younger. They picked up Allura, Coran, and Romelle—a girl, her uncle, and her girlfriend, all new to the area after their hometown was utterly destroyed by riots and fighting.

            It didn’t exactly resemble the kind of _normal_ Keith grew up fantasizing about, but it was nothing short of a dream. His own family, people to protect and who protected him.

            And he’d failed them.

            “Didn’t think so,” Griffin taunted with a step forward, and flipped the knife, and then pointed it at Keith’s face. At about that moment, glass shattered somewhere beyond the door. Griffin whipped around, eyes narrowing as he heard footsteps suddenly fleeing. He glanced back at Keith, eyes narrowing, and then turned and sprinted for the door. He threw it open and poked his head into the hall.

            “Kinkade, what the _hell_ is going on?”

            His voice was muffled, now, but Keith picked up on it anyway.

            “Intruders!”

            Then gunfire.

            The first few shots whizzed into the room, and James threw himself to the ground. Instantly, pain shot through Keith’s abdomen. He looked down, eyes widening as a red stain spread through the bottom of his shirt, soaking through the fabric. His vision darkened, blurred. He didn’t recall his cry of pain, only knew that someone heard it and came running, knew the large form that entered the room and almost screamed, before composing themselves and running at him.

            “Oh, man, this was _not_ supposed to happen…”

            Hunk. Ever-prepared, Hunk drew a knife of his own from his belt and sliced through the ropes on Keith’s chest and legs, the ones binding his hands behind his back, and scooped Keith into his arms. Keith had no time to protest, no words to say as Hunk radioed in to someone.

            “I’ve got Keith, and you need to be ready to _go._ He’s hurt, he’s losing blood—”

            _“LOSING BLOOD?”_

            Keith knew those voices from somewhere, but his brain made exactly zero connections as consciousness began fading. Hunk kept muttering things, kept saying things like _stay awake_ and _don_ _’t you fucking dare pass out on me, do you remember nothing from the run to Thayserix three weeks ago?_ And Thayserix made a vague sort of sense—a feeling of impending doom washed over Keith at the name alone, but as for specifics…

            “Shit, _shit_.”

* * *

            If Hunk swore, you knew it was bad.

            Staring James Griffin down as he brandished a knife while you held your bleeding friend in your arms was pretty fucking bad.

            Keith groaned, eyelids fluttering the same way they’d been for the last thirty seconds, the last thirty seconds that stretched into helpless infinity. Hunk held onto him almost the way he’d hold onto a baby, but not quite, because he was fairly certain squeezing a baby the way he squeezed Keith closer to his chest would have killed it. As it was, Keith was already dying.

            “Step aside, Griffin,” Hunk commanded. “Put the knife down. You don’t have to do this.”

            He peered over his shoulder, at Kinkade lining up his shot. Sweat beaded Kinkade’s forehead, and Hunk swallowed thickly. They should’ve brought Lance, instead of putting him up on his perch a block away. They should’ve brought more backup—maybe Allura, maybe Romelle. He didn’t know where Shiro’d gone, where the other two members of Griffin’s gang were…

            “You finally came for him,” Griffin said. “I think he was losing hope.”

            Gunshot. Griffin whirled around a moment too late, and the bullet struck him square in the back of the thigh. He cried out and went down, and Hunk’s head snapped up. He locked eyes with Kinkade, the barrel of his gun still smoking. Then Kinkade lowered his gun, and Hunk nodded, and took off sprinting. Other footsteps thundered from down another hall, and then Shiro appeared, thermal goggles on his forehead, pushing his white forelock back.

            “The rest of this way’s cleared,” Shiro said. “Lance, report in—”

            _“Outside’s clear, but you’ve gotta move. I’ve—FUCK!”_

            Hunk and Shiro both picked up on it, the staccato bursts of _something_ shattering against the roof. Lance screamed and grunted, and then fired his own gun in return. Hunk shoved down his growing horror and kept going, tried to remember that he had a dying Keith in his arms and it would be on _him_ if they didn’t all make it back alive, if Keith slipped away before they could save him.

            _“Their turret’s on fucking autopilot, this is bullshit!”_ Lance hissed and grunted again. _“I can’t fire from up here. I’ll meet you back up at the car, but you’ve gotta go. One of the others is moving toward your location. They were in the turret, you should have time to get back before they can get to you.”_

            “Be careful,” Shiro warned. “Adam’s gonna kill us if we die.”

            Lance let out a single breath of laughter. _“He can try.”_

            “Shiro, Lance, can we maybe cut the death jokes for two minutes?” Hunk asked desperately. Peas in a pod, the two of them. Hunk didn’t understand it, how someone who’d once appeared responsible, heroic, every inch the _help everyone at any cost_ savior could become just as caustic, just as seemingly careless about death as Lance. Maybe years protecting a band of kids would do that to you. Maybe there were things Shiro’d seen and done he didn’t wanna talk about, just like Lance—

            “Get down!”

            Hunk didn’t need to be told twice.

            He snapped back to attention as he threw himself to the ground, careful not to crush Keith, while Shiro came down on top of him, and bullets whizzed over their heads. Hunk risked the glance back, only to see a girl bearing down on them with a gun. Dark hair, yanked back into a ponytail—familiar, but not enough for Hunk to put a name to the face drawn with fury.

            “Get to the car,” Shiro breathed out as he shoved away from Hunk and drew his own gun. “I’ll meet with you there.”

            If Keith wasn’t on death’s doorstep, bleeding out in his arms, Hunk might have protested and told Shiro to cut the self-sacrificing bullshit. But he didn’t. He gave him one pained look, nodded, turned, and ran, as Shiro engaged their assailant. Maybe Kinkade would help again, maybe he’d convince whoever this girl was to stand down and let them get by, maybe she’d listen and defect too…

            _So many variables._

            There wasn’t a recipe, simple steps to get them all out alive. No equation to plug things into that would result in the best way out. Hunk scowled. He hated flying blind, hated going in without a solid plan. Hated it when plans fell apart around them.

            Hunk barreled into the door in front of him, shoving it open with his shoulder. Pain shot down his arm at that, but it got the job done. He stumbled out into cool air, gunfire blasting overhead. A glimpse at the turret indicated the gun indeed moving on its own, seemingly tracking a target, drawing closer and closer to his location. Hunk raised his eyes to the landscape beyond and saw Lance practically tripping over himself, gun slung over his shoulder on its strap as he drew closer to Griffin’s gang’s base.

            Hunk pinpointed the moment Lance’s eyes locked on them.

            He sped up, dodging gunfire left and right and practically shoving Hunk back into the building, away from the gun’s line of fire. He paled as he took in his best friend, took in his boyfriend, took in the blood on the both of them, took in its source.

            “No, no, nononono,” Lance whispered, and whipped around, eyes landing on the car just some twenty feet away, and then looked back at Hunk and Keith, eyebrows knitting. “Where’s Shiro?”

            “Back in there,” Hunk answered, nodding to the building. “He was covering for us, one of Griffin’s other friends was there—”

            Lance shoved away from the side of the building and bolted for the door. “Say no more. I’ll be out as soon as I can. Get the med kit!”

            And then he disappeared beyond the doorframe, leaving Hunk alone with Keith.

            _Twenty feet, Hunk. Go._

* * *

             _Move move move move move—_

            Lance’s feet slapped the ground, sound echoing harshly around him as he thundered down the hall, alerting every living being in this building that he was coming. He swung his gun around and yanked it off of his back, let the weight fall into his hands, a feeling as natural as breathing. He had no time to dwell on how it hadn’t always been like that, didn’t have time to dwell on his life before this mess. He only had time to dwell on Shiro, locked in a gunfight with a girl Lance recognized, while a boy he recognized came up behind them.

            _One of you shot him._

            Lance had no time to waste. Shiro was losing ground, better in close combat than with a projectile weapon. Lance raised his gun and fired off several shots. The girl went down—Nadia Rizavi. Grew up down the street from Lance. They played together on occasion, before her family moved away. She cried out and dropped her weapon, hands flying to her injured leg, and on instinct, Shiro whirled around to see the mystery newcomer, hardly relaxing even when he put the pieces together, realized it was a friend and not another enemy.

            Then he leveled his gun at the other one. Ryan Kinkade.

            There’d been a time before Hunk, a time before Keith. A time when Lance put together maybe he wasn’t so straight after all. But just like with Rizavi, the circumstances never tilted in their favor. Ryan’s family moved away just weeks before Hunk’s family moved in, just before things went from bad to worse to _can it really get worse than THIS?_

            Lance stared at him. Held his gaze.

            Didn’t fire.

            Kinkade lowered his gun and looked over his shoulder, face tightening. Then he looked at Lance and Shiro—Lance, still as a statue, finger resting on the trigger; Shiro, practically paralyzed, prepared to run in front of Lance at the slightest sign of danger.

            “You’d better go before James gets up,” Ryan said. “Get Keith patched up.”

            “You’re the one who shot him.” Lance didn’t want to believe it, but Kinkade’s eyes dropped to the floor, and Lance recoiled.

            “I was aiming for James,” Kinkade admitted. “He moved. Keith ended up in the line of fire. …I’m sorry.”

            When they were young, this would have made for a great game of pretend—a friend caught in the crossfire, life bleeding out from them, a race against time to save their life before they succumbed to their injuries. But they weren’t young anymore. These were real weapons, and that was half of Lance’s heart fading from this world.

            “Lance, we have to go,” Shiro said, and grabbed his arm. Lance flinched but didn’t jerk out of his grasp, and let Shiro pull him out of the room, while Rizavi protested the sudden turn of events, voice rising in anger. Lance didn’t turn around again, didn’t wait for things to get bad again as Shiro shoved him out the door in front of him, to protect him from whatever was coming up behind.

            The gun turret lost its target. It’d stopped firing, but when Lance looked up at it, he saw the flashing lights running up and down the sides. It was still searching for someone to shoot at, but the car remained out of its line of fire. The car where Hunk sat in the back seat, plainly visible attending to Keith. Lance scrambled up to the other side and climbed in, while Shiro threw the door to the driver’s seat open and jumped in. He slammed the door shut, jolting the whole vehicle, and didn’t wait for Lance to get situated.

            “Hang on,” he bit out, car revving to life. He slammed a foot on the gas, and they took off. Lance and Hunk both clung to Keith to keep him from rolling off the seat.

            Back here, with no other interruptions, Lance could fully assess the injury. A bullet hole in his lower abdomen, hardly visible with the blood all around him, with Hunk trying to wrap it and put pressure on it. Keith had already slipped from consciousness—his eyes were closed, and his skin was pale, pulse stuttering.

            “Lance,” Hunk said with a wince, and looked up once.

            Lance shook his head. “No. Not gonna hear it. He’s…”

            Lance reached out and gripped Keith’s hand and squeezed, while Hunk kept applying pressure to the injury, reached for more cloth and more bandages as the blood soaked through, and Shiro grabbed his radio.

            “Adam, get the med center ready, ASAP.”

            _“Med center? Takashi—”_

“It’s Keith.”

            Adam quieted on his end, and a heartbeat later, began yelling orders to whoever was nearby. Lance, Hunk, and Shiro listened to the chaos happening as Shiro sped down the road, Hunk worked on keeping Keith alive, and Lance kept squeezing his hand. Lance didn’t know when the shaking started, when his entire body began quaking violently, when the first tears sprang to his eyes.

            He didn’t recall coming back to base at all.

* * *

            “Kashi.”

            Shiro paced back and forth in the bedroom he shared with Adam, his rattled nerves finally bearing down on him all at once. Lance passed out somewhere in the middle of the ride back; Shiro ended up carrying him back in, while Hunk raced for the med center. They left Keith in Allura and Coran’s care, godfather and goddaughter setting to work on him, while Matt and Romelle tried to wake Lance back up, checked him over for shock.

            “He could _die,_ Adam—”

            “ _Takashi_.”

            Adam rose from where he sat at the edge of the bed and stopped in front of Shiro, setting his hands on his shoulders. Shiro wrapped hands around Adam’s wrists and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Adam’s.

            “He’s got Allura and Coran working on him, and they saved you more times than I can count. And this is _Keith._ He’s going to pull through, I promise.”

            Adam squeezed Shiro’s shoulders, while Shiro breathed out heavily, unsteadily. In the light slanting in through the blinded windows, sunset-golden, Adam made out the tear stains on Shiro’s face, neat lines cutting into dirt and grime.

            “This is my fault,” Shiro whispered. “We should’ve been out there rescuing him _yesterday_ , we shouldn’t have let it get down to the wire like that, and now…”

            “There’s nothing else we can do, and we can’t go back and change the past,” Adam said. “We can only move forward from here, and we’re going to move forward as a team. You hear me? Keith’s going to pull through, and we’re all going to be there for him. And it’s _not_ your fault. We couldn’t have anticipated what shit Griffin’s gang was going to pull.”

            Adam’s words went in one ear and out the other, no matter how much Shiro would have loved for them to sink in and take root. Shiro’s grip on Adam’s wrists tightened, while Adam’s hands moved from Shiro’s shoulders to cup his face.

            “I know this isn’t where life was supposed to take us.” Adam’s voice dropped—softer, a little more soothing. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be on that track again. But I _do_ know that we’ll get through this. And we’re going to get through it with each other, and with the kids. You said you wanted a family, Kashi. You’ve got one. Please don’t shut down on them now.”

            “They were _kids_ ,” Shiro whispered, voice quivering. “We went to go rescue Keith and I came face-to-face with fucking _kids_. Griffin didn’t surprise me, but the rest of them…the whole operation…they were no older than the others…and what the hell are _we_ doing to them?”

            Shiro’s voice broke and knees gave out. He pitched forward, and Adam released his face and caught him under the arms.

            “Kashi, Kashi, hey.” Adam grunted and got one of Shiro’s arms around his shoulder, and carefully led him back over to the bed. Shiro practically collapsed on the mattress, head falling against Adam’s chest while Adam pulled him closer. He stole a glance at the door, another back down at Shiro, one last one in the direction of the hall, contemplating whether or not to go get a sedative, as Shiro neared hysterical.

            “Takashi,” Adam repeated, “get some rest. Please. You’re exhausted, and today hasn’t helped things. I know, this life…it’s not ideal. It’s not good, it’s not healthy…but they need to learn to survive. You’re doing the best you can, and that’s all they—and _I_ —can ask of you. And now we need you to rest. By the time you wake up, Keith’ll be out of surgery and good as new, and we can all figure out our next steps from there.”

            But Shiro made no moves to get up, no moves to release Adam and lie down. And Adam didn’t push. He held the back of Shiro’s head and let him keep his face pressed against Adam’s chest while he cried, gasped and wheezed, a breakdown a long time coming, a breakdown Adam had foreseen for a while now, a breakdown he vowed to himself to keep a secret, between only them. Shiro would never want the kids to see him like this, would never want them to feel an ounce of guilt for this. He always wanted to be strong, be the hero and protector.

            But every hero needed a protector of their own.

* * *

            Keith slipped away from the world with pain whiting out every one of his senses, and he reentered it the same way.

            He jerked awake in his bed, and immediately had several sets of arms pushing him back down. His sudden surge of energy vanished, and he didn’t bother an _attempt_ at fighting back. He forced his body to relax against the mattress, lay his head against the pillow, blinked a few times to clear out his vision. He fought against the not-so-distant aching, the stab of hurt that shot through his abdomen.

            “Wh…what…?”

            His voice came out raspy; a few seconds of survey turned up tubing, into his nose and down his throat. He raised his eyes, panic spiking briefly as he assessed the faces in front of him: Allura, Coran, and Matt. Looking beyond them, he spotted Pidge and Romelle whispering to each other, pointing at some sort of computer screen.

            “Keith,” Allura greeted, sounding slightly breathless. A closer look at her indicated bloodstained scrubs, tear-stained cheeks. Coran looked to be in a similar state, while Matt lingered just behind them, decidedly cleaner.

            “A-Allura?”

            Keith furrowed his brow, and tried to piece together the last things he remembered before the darkness got ahold of him. He’d been in Griffin’s base, then he’d been _shot_ …and then Hunk, and then…and then he lost it. The thread slipped away, frayed into things that may or may not have happened. A lot of shouting, blurriness…and then nothing.

            “Where’s…?”

            Hunk had been there…and if Keith was back here, then Hunk should have made it out. But who had Hunk been _talking to?_ And had Lance ever made it out of the _first_ mission?

            Thundering footsteps outside the door drew Keith’s attention. Allura and Coran took steps apart so Keith could see, as Lance paused in the doorframe, Hunk, Adam, and Shiro trailing, Adam supporting half of Shiro’s weight.

            “Keith!”

            Lance’s voice cracked on the name as he rushed into the room and stumbled to a halt at Keith’s bedside, Allura and Coran both calling warnings for him to be careful, to not rip out the IVs Keith was just now noticing in his arm, with another leading to his abdomen. Then Lance stole Keith’s attention by taking his hand, clasping it between both of his own and pressing it against his forehead.

            “Keith…oh my God, I’m so sorry…”

            “Lance…”

            Keith allowed his focus to linger on the sensation of Lance holding his hand, muttering a thousand apologies, for a moment longer, before turning his attention to Hunk, Shiro, and Adam. Hunk gave Keith a tight but clearly relieved nod, and pulled up a chair next to Lance, while Adam guided Shiro over to the other side of Keith’s bed.

            “Hey, bud,” Shiro whispered, and reached out to push Keith’s bangs back. “How’re you feeling?”

            “Like shit,” Keith muttered.

            “I mean…that’s understandable,” Hunk responded under his breath.

            “What happened?” Keith asked, looking up at Hunk.

            Hunk hesitated. He traded glances with Shiro and Lance, swallowed thickly, began wringing his hands as he tried to come up with an explanation. Finally, Allura cleared her throat, pursed her lips into a thin line while Keith swung his gaze in her direction.

            “According to what we were told when they brought you to us,” she began, voice measured, “the rescue mission we staged went…a little awry. We had an…inside source of aid. You were shot in place of somebody else. And the shot was lucky, at that. You bled quite a lot, and had you been hit anywhere other than the spot you actually were, well…”

            “You likely would have bled to death,” Coran finished, voice small. “If not bleeding to death, then bacterial infection, stomach acid…take your pick, it wouldn’t have been pleasant.”

            Keith wore his confusion on his face plain as day.

            “Kinkade,” Hunk said flatly, and Keith’s pulse stuttered as he remembered Kinkade’s shadowed face, remembered the gun pointed directly at his forehead… “He decided to help Shiro and I get you out from inside. He meant to shoot Griffin, but Griffin got out of the way, and you ended up in the line of fire. When Allura says the shot was _lucky_ , she means it. It was a good distance away, and not aimed for you at all.”

            _Oh._

            Keith brought his other hand, free of IVs, free of Lance’s crushing grip, over to his side, ran fingers over the exposed skin, the stitches that sealed up whatever surgical job Allura and Coran had done.

            “Hunk carried you out of there,” Shiro went on, voice heavy. “I tried to keep the other members of Griffin’s gang distracted, but if Lance hadn’t been there…I don’t think either of us would have gotten out alive.”

            “It’s my fault he ended up there in the first place,” Lance whispered. “If I’d been paying better attention on the scouting mission—”

            “You _literally_ got shot with a fucking _tranq_ —”

            Keith almost bolted up again. In Lance’s mind’s eye, he could see Keith whirling on him, demanding to know what the hell Pidge meant, but the best he could manage at the moment was his eyebrows shooting up, mouth halfway open when Lance squeezed his hand tighter.

            “What does she _mean?_ Lance?”

            Lance shivered; he didn’t think he could squeeze Keith’s hand any harder if he could, but Keith never winced. Never asked him to ease up.

            “The day of the scouting mission…Griffin’s gang must have set up some kind of trap. They probably figured we’d head out into the Dead Zone one day. They set off those explosives, remember that? It was a distraction. I looked away for a second…a fucking _second._ I got shot with a tranq, and they got you. I…I never should’ve let you out of my sight…” Lance sucked in a shaking breath and ducked his head again. “I’m so sorry.”

            “I shouldn’t have sent you two out there to begin with,” Shiro said with a sigh.

            “I have an idea,” Pidge said, pushing away from the counter she leaned against and joining the group gathered around Keith’s bed. “We blame _Griffin_ and his gang for trying to stake a claim on neutral territory, and then we get _revenge_ —”

            “No,” Shiro said, shaking his head.

            He said it with an air of finality; a hush fell over the room, as the others waited for him to speak up. Adam squeezed his shoulder; Lance lifted his head and kept his crushing grip on Keith’s hand, while Keith rubbed a thumb along Lance’s knuckles, slow and soothing; Romelle joined the group, standing next to Hunk, while Hunk stepped over and made room for her.

            “Keith needs to recover, and you _all_ need to rest,” he went on. “I made a promise to myself the day I took Keith in, and it extends to all of you. I promised I would keep you all _safe_ and shield you from as much as I could. I wanted to make sure you all knew how to survive…but I can’t let you cross the line into active attack. The world…” He stopped, long enough to drop his head, long enough to blink a few times and clear his eyes, while Adam stood up behind him, ever-supportive. “The world’s gone to shit. This isn’t ideal living. But just because the world is cruel doesn’t mean you all have to be. I told myself I’d keep you all in line, and…keep you away from a past like mine.”

            And maybe nobody knew what it meant, except for Adam and Coran. But nobody questioned it.

            “Shiro’s right,” Lance whispered. “When you look a childhood best friend in the eye and realize…”

            _He shot your boyfriend,_ he didn’t finish. He let the sentence go and removed himself from the conversation, bowing his head once more.

            “Going forward,” Shiro said, and regained the group’s attention, “we make a new game plan. We take stock of our supplies and figure out what we need. We start scoping out new locations. As soon as Keith recovers, I think we need to move bases. Find somewhere new to set up. And most importantly…” He paused, eyes sweeping over everyone, leaning on each other, arms around each other, hands clasped. “We support one another. No more focusing on what went wrong. We improve, and we move on.”

            “That goes for you, too,” Adam muttered.

            Shiro spared him a single glance, held it for several heartbeats before nodding.

            “Get some rest,” he said dismissively, and then ambled away from the crowd, out the door, with Adam trailing. One by one, the others broke into their own conversations, left the room, until only Lance remained at Keith’s bedside.

            Silence fell between them, as Lance finally let himself shed tears. Keith swatted at his head until Lance gave in, and climbed up on the bed next to him. Keith held the back of his head, ran fingers through his hair, let a few tears of his own slide down his cheeks.

            “I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry,” Lance repeated, over and over.

            “Not your fault,” Keith shushed him. “Lance—Lance, look at me. It’s not your fault.”

            Lance met Keith’s eyes and sniffled, before dropping his head and burying it against Keith’s chest. Keith kept carding fingers through Lance’s hair, tried to make his breathing even as he listened to Lance try and sync up, one ear pressed over his heart.

            “We almost lost you.” Keith almost didn’t hear him. “If we _had_ _…_ I don’t know what I would have done with myself. I-I…”

            “If you had, you would’ve had the others to pick you up. To pick each other up,” Keith said quietly. “You would support each other no matter what. You would let it be a lesson, you’d learn from it, and you’d keep going.”

            His hand slid down, to Lance’s neck. He searched for his pulse, and relaxed when he felt it flutter underneath a pinkie.

            “But I’m alive,” he added. “I’m safe. Everyone’s safe. So we’re not going to think on the _what ifs_ anymore. We’re going to pick up and carry on.”

            Lance didn’t answer, and Keith didn’t carry on the conversation. He let the silence reign again, and listened to Lance fall asleep, watched the tension leave his muscles, watched his expression relax into something almost peaceful. He spoke his own apologies in the way his IV’d hand traced patterns on the back of Lance’s—swirls for _I_ _’m sorry I didn’t spend those few extra minutes with you before we left_ , dots for _I_ _’m sorry this guilt’s been sitting on you for almost three days_ , jagged lines for _I_ _’m sorry I scared you._

            He slipped from consciousness mid-heart: _I_ _’m going to make it up to you, I promise._

**Author's Note:**

> welp
> 
> off to write the other 27 requests
> 
> in the meantime:  
> -stan [deceit so natural](https://archiveofourown.org/series/767406) ([1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11297529/chapters/25276539)) ([2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11473437/chapters/25727043)) ([3](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743020/chapters/26462739))  
> -stan [stealing our own place in the sun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15900732/chapters/37059441)


End file.
